The Bell Jar, though now a classic, is by no means a standard novel (this is probably one of the reasons it became a classic). Sylvia Plath crafted this work with great expertise, particularly when describing certain events of the story out of order. This unique sequencing adds greatly to the narrative and our understand of Ester. I would also add that Ester's (and, more importantly Plath's) memory is extremely important for understanding the novel. Most important of all is how these two things go together.
Starting with sequence, the book begins pretty straight forward. Everything is in order, much how Ester's life in New York is completely organized. For the most part, things happen in an understandable order. Towards the end of the trip, the timeline begins to unravel and eventually falls apart some time during Ester's stay in the suburbs. Events become disconnected and unclear. The whole story becomes murky and isolated. This is obviously emblematic of Ester's mental state, but Plath takes a very nuanced approach in her depiction of mental health. Rather than making all the events seem completely out of order and confusing, there is some kind of timeline, it just becomes more difficult to follow. Ester is still Ester, only her bell jar has distorted the timeline of the book. Towards the end of the novel, the sequencing becomes more normal as Ester recovers.
I would now like to consider the effects that memory has on The Bell Jar. This is a lot more difficult because I don't know Plath personally, but as the novel is largely autobiographical, I would image that her own memory shaded many events of the book. This shading is pretty clear in for Ester throughout the book, particularly in scenes with Buddy. Most interesting is when things that happened in New York that we even saw are brought up, and how present Ester sees those things differently than past Ester. As she is in crisis for most of the book, I don't expect her to be a reliable narrator (in fact, I think it adds a lot to the book).
That's interesting! I hadn't thought about the timeline as a means of viewing Esther's mental health. When she has more time alone her mind wanders to memories from the past (there was intent and connection between the order of these memories in the book), but to the reader everything feels disconnected and disorganized... maybe like Esther's mind.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a cool way of seeing her associations, if that makes sense? She'll be doing something random, then suddenly go on a rant about a person or a place or a memory, and often whatever she was doing before is vaguely connected to the new topic, or her opinions on the topic. Like you said there is order there, it's just hard to follow. In general I like that Esther's still logical, her logic is just drastically shifted from the norm and in some cases flawed
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! I found the jumbled timeline a bit difficult to follow near the middle and end of the book but never reflected on why it was non-linear. Her narration style felt less like stream-of-consciousness and more like copy-and-pasted chunks of stories into sections of the book. I think this may have also been done to intentionally emphasize her inability to think straight while she had trouble sleeping.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually super interesting and a really important detail that I didn't really pay attention to when first reading it. I didn't take much thought to it but there were definitely moments while reading where I was pretty confused or uncertain about the timeline or how much time had passed. However, reflecting back on that, I think it's a really interesting detail and an important show of the bell jar's effects (or depression). A lot of people often describe a symptom of depression as time just blurring past or every day seeming or dragging on exactly the same and I think we see that especially when Esther first returns to the suburbs. The time aspect is definitely just a subtle and smooth way of transitioning and showing Esther slipping into this mental struggle.
ReplyDeleteWhen the timeline started to jump around I had not made the connection to her mental state. I agree that that the asynchronous timeline is a very interesting technique used by Sylvia Plath, though I think I should read the middle again in order to understand the impliciations of the time jumps to her mental state.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really pay too much attention to the timeline of the story and its connection to Esther's mental health, which is why I think you brought up a very interesting point. Esther's (and in turn Plath's memory) must have greatly affected her recounting of the events that unfolded throughout the book. Her deteriorating mental health only contributed to a worse sense of the actual facts which definitely made her less reliable as a narrator.
ReplyDeleteOne moment that really captures Esther's distorted sense of time is when she isn't even aware that it's her birthday when her mother brings her flowers--it's not that she's briefly confused about what the date is; it's like she has no idea it's even *near* her birthday, and she thinks it might be Valentine's Day. It reminds me of the earlier image of the calendar without the reassuring black bars to divide the days, so she thinks of her future as one unending blank space--in a sense, this is the reality she lives while she's in the institutions, and the impression is that Plath's own memory of this ordeal is episodic and disjointed, as reflected in the narrative structure.
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